Federal Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has told the West Australian Supreme Court he was the one who leaked a covert recording of Perth businessman Greg Poland to journalist Nathan Hondros, the leak at the centre of a defamation battle that has now run for more than 7 years.
Hastie admitted he'd listened to the tape for a matter of minutes before sending it to Hondros on WhatsApp. By the time he left the witness box on Thursday, two other sworn accounts stood against his own, and his answer to many of the hardest questions was that he couldn't recall.
The recording runs 46 minutes and was made secretly by sand miner Aaron Grainger at a 2019 meeting at the Subiaco Hotel. Around the table were Grainger, his wife Melissa, Peel Development Commission commercial officer Lisa Taylor and Poland, then the commission's deputy chair and still chairman of property developer Strzelecki Group, which owns Dolphin Quay in Mandurah and Sorrento Quay at Hillarys Boat Harbour.
The tape sparked two WAtoday articles by Hondros and former deputy editor Kate Hedley alleging backdoor political dealings, including a proposal for Grainger to take millions of tonnes of soil described as "toxic" from the Forrestfield Airport Link Metronet project in exchange for a lucrative plot of land. Poland says the articles were "hit jobs" that implied he was corrupt. He's suing Nine, the company that owns WAtoday, along with the two journalists, Hastie, two of Hastie's staffers and former WA Liberal leader Zak Kirkup, and he wants the politicians held liable as publishers of the tape.
Hastie heard minutes of the tape, then sent it straight to Nathan Hondros
Hastie told the court Grainger came to his office in 2019 to discuss Indigenous business opportunities around a sand mining operation in the Myalup State Forest, then asked for a private conversation. In that conversation, Hastie said, Grainger claimed Poland had offered him a path to the Myalup operation in exchange for taking between 2 and 8 million tonnes of soil the state government needed to put somewhere.
"My concern was that the State Government was going to use the Peel region as a dumping ground for toxic waste," Hastie said. His electorate of Canning takes in large parts of the Peel region.
He said he considered the tape a matter of public interest, and explained his choice of recipient this way: "I trusted Hondros, not as a friend, but as a balanced journalist who had knowledge of the Labor Party, being a former staffer."
He recalled his pitch to the journalist: "I told Nathan what I heard, I said 'mate you know the Labor Party inside out, what is going on here?'"
Aaron Grainger swore the tape came with a promise. Hastie doesn't remember one
Grainger's sworn account is different. He told the court he recorded the meeting "for his own safety" because he feared the proposal was a "set up", and that he only sent the audio to Hastie on the condition it went no further, a condition he says Hastie agreed to.
Grainger said Hastie had then "obviously sneakily" sent the recording on to one of his most senior staffers, Claire Bradley.
Hastie said he didn't remember making any such promise. He told the court Grainger had already sent the recording to a Melbourne journalist and to his own lawyers, and was "elevating it to me as his Federal MP". The tape was also sent to the corruption watchdog.
Hondros swore Hastie had been a protected source since 2016. Hastie denies it
Hondros gave evidence on Wednesday that he'd promised Hastie in 2016 not to reveal his identity if he passed on information. Hastie denied any such arrangement existed, evidence The West Australian described as in stark contrast to the journalist's. Hastie put their contact at once a month, rising to once a week "at a peak".
Phone records showed more than a dozen calls between the two men in the days before and after the first article was published. Hastie said he couldn't recall the specifics of each call. Asked about a series of calls with Kirkup around the same time, and whether he'd sent him the recording, he said: "I don't recall sending it to Mr Kirkup but can't deny that I did."
Under questioning from Poland's barrister Martin Bennett, Hastie also couldn't say whether it was him or his media adviser David Birch who sent the audio file, telling the court: "I can't remember accurately what I said on the phone 7½ years ago."
| Andrew Hastie's answers, next to everyone else's | |
|---|---|
| What the court heard | What Andrew Hastie said |
| The promise Aaron Grainger swore he sent Hastie the tape on the condition it went no further, that Hastie agreed, and that it was then "obviously sneakily" passed to senior staffer Claire Bradley | Says he doesn't remember making any such promise |
| The source arrangement Nathan Hondros swore he promised Hastie in 2016 not to reveal his identity if he passed on information | Denied any arrangement with Hondros existed |
| Who sent the file Martin Bennett asked whether it was Hastie or his media adviser David Birch who sent the audio to Hondros | "I can't remember accurately what I said on the phone 7½ years ago" |
| The Kirkup copy Bennett pointed to calls with Zak Kirkup around publication and asked if Hastie sent him the recording | "I don't recall sending it to Mr Kirkup but can't deny that I did" |
| The motive Bennett: "You thought it would be of political benefit to you, didn't you?" | "No" |
| The Nine legal fees, 2022 In the Roberts-Smith trial, Arthur Moses SC put to Hastie that Nine was covering his legal fees in separate defamation proceedings and that he was "beholden" to the publisher | "Absolutely not" |
Hastie denies the leak was political. The timing sat months before an election
Bennett put the motive to him directly: "You thought it would be of political benefit to you, didn't you?" Hastie answered: "No."
He also denied the leak was retaliation for a poll Poland helped commission to oust former Liberal premier Colin Barnett. Bennett tried to play a radio interview Hastie gave in March 2019, after the stories ran, which he argued proved the political interest. The judge refused to allow it.
The articles landed in early 2019, months before that year's federal election, with Hastie defending Canning against a dominant WA Labor government. Hastie has built his political brand on national security and the discipline of official secrets. On Thursday the same MP described hearing minutes of a covert recording of private citizens and passing it to a journalist he spoke with up to weekly.
Hastie is no stranger to a political fight: he's also the man who said he'd rather be taken out in a box than bend the knee to One Nation, and One Nation is already using a state contest inside Canning as a dry run against him.
Video: Karl Stefanovic. Barnaby Joyce said Andrew Hastie would be "down on one knee, two knees, hands and knees, rolling on the carpet" for a ministry worth about $400,000 a year.
Alannah MacTiernan and Dave Kelly lined up to deny Greg Poland's influence
The court also heard claims that Poland talked up his access to Labor ministers Rita Saffioti and Alannah MacTiernan at the Subiaco Hotel meeting, including a suggestion put to witnesses that once a favour was done, the ministers would "steamroll" projects through.
MacTiernan, the former regional development minister, denied asking Poland to fix the government's soil problem: "There would be just no way that I would have proactively gone out and done that." She rejected the steamroll description, saying both ministers were known for "determination and persistence", and confirmed she'd urged Poland to quit the commission after the stories broke.
"I said there's a freight train heading in your direction and it's in your best interest to resign. And he agreed to do so," she said, adding she believed he'd spoken in a way that was "really very inappropriate".
Former fisheries minister Dave Kelly denied Poland engineered the government's failed lobster policy, calling the claim "absolutely not true" and telling the court the policy had been in the works for up to a year before it was announced in December 2018.
Nine was covering Hastie's legal bills, Ben Roberts-Smith's barrister put to him in court
It isn't the first courtroom where Hastie's relationship with Nine has come up. In March 2022, giving evidence for Nine's defence in Ben Roberts-Smith's defamation trial, Hastie faced questions from Roberts-Smith's barrister Arthur Moses SC, who put to him that Nine was covering his legal fees in separate defamation proceedings, a case Moses said could leave the MP bankrupt and at risk of losing his seat in parliament, AAP reported at the time.
"Do you feel that you have needed to come to court ... and make statements supportive of ... the respondents because of the assistance that they're providing you?" Moses asked.
"Absolutely not," Hastie replied. Asked whether he agreed he was "beholden to the respondents in this case because they are supporting you in that case", he said: "No, I don't."
The report didn't name which proceedings Nine was funding.
Nine stands by the articles. Poland says they were hit jobs
Nine's barrister Matthew Lewis SC told the court the articles were a fair account of a meeting organised by a statutory body. "Nothing has shown the substance of the articles to be false: the recording says today exactly what it said then," he said. "A journalist does not get a better source than the subject's own recorded voice."
Poland told the court the first article left him "dumbfounded" and that comments from Saffioti's office were like being "knifed in the back". Bennett pointed to remarks from that office stating the soil was not "toxic", and to donation records he said undercut the framing of his client as a big donor. Poland's son Jay gave evidence his father stopped visiting the office after the stories, sold his $7.5 million Peppermint Grove home and withdrew socially.
Poland maintains the recording breached surveillance laws and should be destroyed, and Bennett has opposed it being tendered as evidence. Lewis argued excluding it would effectively collapse the case against the political defendants.
Justice Matthew Howard is yet to rule on whether the recording comes in. Deputy Premier Rita Saffioti is due in the witness box on Friday.
